Mumbai Police to chargesheet Rauf

Controversial Pakistani umpire Asad Rauf is learnt to have been named as an accused in the crime branch chargesheet, in connection with the probe into the betting scandal during the IPL, which is likely to be filed on Saturday.

The chargesheet, which runs into more than 6000 pages is slated to be filed at the Esplanade court in which the Mumbai police crime branch has given details of some interactions between bookies and Rauf during the tournament.

An senior crime branch officer, who spoke requesting anonymity, refused to elaborate on the evidence they had unearthed against Rauf during the five-month investigation which began with the arrest of key bookie from south Mumbai, Ramesh Vyas in May this year. Crime branch had already revealed that Rauf had received expensive gifts from bookies.

The officer, however, added that Rauf is currently in Pakistan and getting his custody for interrogation is a long legal process that will involve sending a letter rogatory (LR) to a Pakistan court.

The chargesheet will not mention any spot-fixing charges or direct underworld links.

No fixing charges

“We have not found any direct links of the underworld to the racket, unlike the Delhi case in which they had invoked the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA). Also unlike the Delhi case, we have not found any evidence of spot-fixing. Hence we shall not be mentioning that as well,” he said.

He added there are 22 arrested accused in the case and the chargesheet will include names of bookies Pawan and Sanjay Jaipur as wanted. After their anticipatory bail application was rejected by the Bombay high court, the Jaipur brothers have been granted time till September 30 to approach the Supreme Court.

An officer said that they did not want to delay the chargesheet and hence decided to go ahead with it, rather than waiting to arrest the Jaipur brothers. “We can always file a supplementary chargesheet once we arrest them,” the officer said.